What these 6 regulatory leaders learned at the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program

When you advance to a senior role in regulatory affairs, the skills you use daily begin to change. 

The skills you applied at the beginning of your regulatory career were probably narrow, focusing on specific regulatory requirements and supporting individual projects. 

When you advance into a leadership position in regulatory affairs, those things still matter. After all, getting safe and effective products to market is still the goal. 

But in a regulatory affairs leadership position, you can’t afford to just think narrowly. You must think broadly, balancing the goals of specific projects with big-picture initiatives. 

That’s where opportunities like the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program come in. This program isn’t like other educational events for regulatory professionals. It’s a dedicated event for regulatory leaders. 

Over 3.5 days on the campus of one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, attendees get the chance to learn business and leadership lessons they can take home and apply to their regulatory jobs. 

Registration is now open for the 2026 RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program. Learn more here. 

This is what six regulatory affairs professionals learned from their experience at the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program. 

Some time to focus on executive education, but also time to make new friends in regulatory

Diana Salditt is one of RAPS’ co-facilitators for the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program. She participated in the program herself in 2005 and emphasizes the value of spending time in such a dedicated format — especially in a day and age where so much of our interaction happens virtually. 

That time you attended a course and had to keep ducking out of the room to take calls? Not at the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program. 

“I think the biggest benefit is just how intense and focused it is,” she says. “There aren't any distractions.” 

Another benefit Diana points to is the chance to interact with other regulatory leaders attending the program. All attendees stay in the same building, eating meals together with opportunities to socialize, network and learn from each other. 

“It's not the kind of program where you're going to sit there and listen in silence all day,” Salditt says. “There is a lot of interaction with the group. I was really impressed by that because I think you learn a lot from what your peers are doing and how they're doing it.” 

Business lessons you can apply immediately in regulatory affairs

“I learned so much,” says Patricia Smith, PhD, RAC-US, senior director, regulatory affairs, quality assurance and pharmacovigilance at Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical. 

“I applied so much of it,” she said. “When I returned, I shared what I learned from the program with people on my team because I thought they would benefit.” 

Smith attended the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program in 2023 to continue to build her executive and leadership skills. 

“It was just one of the best weeks ever,” she says. “I thought it attracted brilliant people. The other attendees were all looking to advance. The professors who were teaching it were brilliant. They were just so polished.” 

“I just couldn't stop talking about it. When I came back, I was on a real high from it.” 

Access to top business minds...who relate lessons to regulatory

“Right from the very beginning, I was pretty impressed,” says Stacy Woeppel, director, global regulatory affairs lead at Ionis Pharmaceuticals. “The minute I walked into the door, I felt like I was being taken care of. I wasn't left to my own devices, and I was impressed with that.” 

Woeppel attended the program in 2022 because she thought it would help her advance in her career more broadly, but also because she wanted to be able to get regulatory affairs a seat at the table for important discussions.  

Her boss agreed, and Woeppel says after attending the program she was able to establish a better working relationship with commercial in her company, among other things. 

“I've participated in various education courses for regulatory affairs,” she said. “They were all nice, but they focused on niche regulatory details. Like, ‘What do you need to put in a CMC module three?’ Very specific. Kellogg was a broader-type scope, higher-level, strategic experience. It was clearly from a perspective of business, but the faculty members really made it applicable to regulatory.” 

Material that’s appropriate for regulatory leaders

David Rogers, RAC-Devices, attended the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development program in 2019 on the recommendation of his boss. He’s since advanced to lead the regulatory department as the senior director of regulatory affairs at Arthrex. 

“I think it certainly played a role in my career progression,” he said. If my progression was going to happen anyway, attending this program made me better. Even if my career progression got me to this point, I feel like I'm a stronger performer as a result of attending.” 

Rogers points to the lessons he learned about negotiation and decision making, and the chance to hear from other regulatory leaders, as particularly memorable moments.  

"At the end of the day, I thought the material was very appropriate for what I was looking for,” Rogers said. “Even at the time, when I was taking notes, I remember even thinking while I was sitting in that room and writing, 'This is great. I'm learning stuff again. It's so differentiating from the things like free webinars.’” 

Skills that round out your regulatory experience

Because after all, “people management is a lot different than regulatory,” says Nicholas Tabrizi, senior regulatory affairs manager at Terumo BCT, who also attended on the recommendation of his manager. 

This was an area where Tabrizi learned from the cohort attending and from the Kellogg staff as a participant in the 2023 program. 

He divides his Kellogg people management lessons into two categories: 

• Leading your department, where lessons are a bit more specific and pertain to one-on-one interactions with your direct reports 

• Making the case for regulatory to other departments, where lessons are focused on the bigger picture 

“I do think it gave me a lot of tools to deal with different challenging situations at work,” he says. “I think it's made me a better leader.” 

Business lessons that help regulatory professionals see the big picture

Amy McKinney, a regulatory fellow at Boston Scientific, found out about the program when her boss showed up on a call one day with a RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program shirt. After a few delays, she attended in 2022. 

The biggest takeaway she emphasized was that she learned to approach problems with skills that aren’t always in a regulatory professional’s toolkit. 

"You're learning more strategic, and business-type information, executive type information, like how you work with others to make decisions,” she said. "We even looked at case studies and discussed how to apply them in regulatory affairs and what to do to get regulatory a seat at the table to make those decisions.” 

McKinney emphasized that these decision-making conversations involved looking at the social and ethical costs of making decisions, and how to examine data for what it is — and for what it isn’t. 

“They're not things you can read out of a book,” she said. “And they are skills you can keep developing over time. The program helps with that. It helps you think about things from a different perspective.” 

Unlock your leadership potential at the RAPS Kellogg Executive Development Program

Secure your spot in the 2026 program before prices go up. Register here.